Venture Lab - Our Approach

Venture Lab unleashes entrepreneurial potential and creates startups that positively impact the world at scale. Our work provides:

• Inspiration: igniting passion for purpose-driven innovation and value creation
• Self-belief: raising aspirations and nurturing confidence to push the boundaries of possibility
• Empowerment: providing the knowledge, resources and connections to turn ideas into reality

Venture Lab’s approach to innovation and entrepreneurship is underpinned by our belief that Durham University students and graduates can achieve significant positive impact in the world. Our programmes and services the earliest stages of self-reflection and problem exploration, through to the launch and early-stage growth of new ventures.

Principles 

The Venture Lab principles outline the approach we encourage those accessing our programmes and services to adopt. They reflect the mindset our experience has shown to be vital if our students and graduates are to achieve success in an entrepreneurial context.

Venture Compass

The Venture Compass sets out Venture Lab’s insight‑driven approach to innovation, which underpins all of our programmes. It brings together globally recognised tools and frameworks with proven track records, used by the Venture Lab team to support innovation and entrepreneurship from the very earliest stages through to raising seed funding and taking ideas to market.

By integrating these tools into a single framework, the Venture Compass provides clear direction for students and graduates as they begin and progress on their innovation and entrepreneurial journeys. It helps them identify the most relevant Venture Lab opportunities to engage with, based on their goals and current stage of development.

The Venture Compass diagram below illustrates the stages of innovation and entrepreneurship covered by our full range of programmes and services.

Students engaging with our key programmes complete self-reflective assessment of their competencies related to the relevant stage(s) of the Venture Compass and are able to track their development.